Shawano, 1932: The Murder of Paddy Berrell

(This case is shockingly hard to find anything about. Newspaper articles are scant, and the police files have been destroyed.)

Around March 5, 1926, an election was held in Chicago for the Chauffeurs Union. Patrick “Paddy” Berrell, business agent for the rival Teamsters union, was shot at the election. Also shot were Berrell’s associates, business agent Carl Peterson and Edward Robinson. The paper indicates that arrests were made, but is vague on the incident. No names of shooters were given, not was there a reason, other than the assumption that Berrell wanted the unions to merge.

On July 21, 1932, bodyguard Willie Marks (or Marx) and Teamster vice president Patrick Berrell were drinking at Bud Haupt’s Lime Kiln Hill Inn, also known as the Limestone Castle, and chatting with bartender George LaVelle. The Castle was described as a “small but elaborate” tavern built into a hill on Highway 55 between Shawano and Bonduel near Highway 29. There was only one entrance. As Marks and Berrell left, they were shot by men with sawed-off shotguns and machine guns.

District Attorney Louis W. Catteau investigated and found many tracks around the inn, suggesting the killers waited a long time for Berrell to come out. Berrell’s body had $5,700 in his pockets, as well as some shotgun shells, but he was unarmed.

Berrell and a female companion were registered as Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Ryan at Oscar Hartman’s Shawano on the Lake Resort for the past two weeks, a reputed hangout for “gangster types”. Hartman admitted that gangsters visited his resort, but said they were always well behaved. Willie Marks had only come up from Chicago a couple days before the shooting, along with his brother-in-law Clarence Gleason.

The newspapers speculated the killers were members of the George “Red” Barker gang. Barker was tied to the Teamsters, but when he was murdered on June 17, 1932, the speculation was that the Capone or Touhy gang had done it, so there seems no reason to seek revenge on Berrell. Other sources suggested Marks was close to George “Bugs” Moran, and thus the likely killer was Moran rival James “Fur” Sammons. They even went so far as to say Marks was a witness at the St. valentine’s Day Massacre and escaped alive.